TYPES OR STYLES OF WRITING

These are the four different types of writing that are generally used. There are many sub-types of writing that may fall in any of those categories. A writer must know all these styles in order to identify the purpose of his or her own writing and make sure it’s something the audience wants to read.

Descriptive – The aim of descriptive writing is to help the reader visualize, in detail, a character, event, place, or all of these things at once. The author might describe the scene in terms of all five senses. Descriptive writing allows the writer a great deal more artistic freedom than expository writing does. Descriptive writing evokes images through rich description. Descriptive writing’s main purpose is to describe. It is a style of writing that focuses on describing a character, an event, or a place in great detail. It can be poetic when the author takes the time to be very specific in his or her descriptions.

Key Points:

• It is often poetic in nature
• It describes places, people, events, situations, or locations in a highly-detailed manner.
• The author visualizes what he or she sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels.

Narrative – whether that story is real or imaginary. Pieces in a narrative style will have characters, and through the narrative, the reader learns what happens to them. Narrative writing can also include dialogue. Narrative writing tells a story. The author will create different characters and tell you what happens to them (sometimes the author writes from the point of view of one of the characters—this is known as first person narration). Novels, short stories, novellas, poetry, and biographies can all fall in the narrative writing style. Simply, narrative writing answers the question: “What happened then?”

Key Points:

• A person tells a story or event.
• Has characters and dialogue.
• Has definite and logical beginnings, intervals, and endings.
• Often has situations like actions, motivational events, and disputes or conflicts with their eventual solutions.

Persuasive – The aim of persuasive writing, or argumentation, is to influence the reader to assume the author’s point of view. The author will express personal opinions in the piece and arm him- or herself with evidence so that the reader will agree with him or her. Persuasive writing aims to sway the reader toward the author’s point of view. Persuasive writing’s main purpose is to convince. Unlike expository writing, persuasive writing contains the opinions and biases of the author. To convince others to agree with the author’s point of view, persuasive writing contains justifications and reasons. It is often used in letters of complaint, advertisements or commercials, affiliate marketing pitches, cover letters, and newspaper opinion and editorial pieces.

Key Points:

• Persuasive writing is equipped with reasons, arguments, and justifications.
• In persuasive writing, the author takes a stand and asks you to agree with his or her point of view.
• It often asks for readers to do something about the situation (this is called a call-to-action).

Expository – The word expository contains the word expose, so the reason expository is an apt descriptor for this type of writing is that it exposes, or sets forth, facts. It is probably the most common writing genre you will come across throughout your day. In an expository piece, a topic will be introduced and laid out in a logical order without reference to the author’s personal opinions.

Expository writing’s main purpose is to explain. It is a subject-oriented writing style, in which authors focus on telling you about a given topic or subject without voicing their personal opinions. These types of essays or articles furnish you with relevant facts and figures but do not include their opinions. This is one of the most common types of writing. You always see it in textbooks and how-to articles. The author just tells you about a given subject, such as how to do something. The aim is to explain and to inform. Expository writing sets forth facts.

Key Points:

• Usually explains something in a process.
• Is often equipped with facts and figures.
• Is usually in a logical order and sequence.

Articles

• Rowe, (2011). Towards a greater diversity in writing styles, argumentative strategies and genre of manuscripts. European Journal of Information Systems, 20, pp. 491–495. 

Books 

• 20 + free writing ebooks to become a better writer.

Blogs

• Greenawald, E. (2021). The 5 types of writing styles with examples.
• Kenitz, D. (2021). The elements of narrative writing.
• Landis, H. (2021). 5 examples of narrative writing.
• Stein, C. (2018). The 4 main types of writing styles and how to use them as a writer.

Videos

• Adhel, A. (2018). The four main writing styles (expository, persuasive, descriptive and narrative).
• Al-Agha, A. (2016). The four types of English writing.
• EssayPro (2020). All parts of an essay & types of writing: types of essays examples.
• Miacademy Learning Channel (2020). 4 forms of writing.
• Trisna, W. (2019). Types of writing : narrative, descriptive, expository, argumentative.

Websites

• Aagyan, L. (2013). Types of writing: expository, narrative, descriptive, persuasive.
• The University of Rhode Island (2000). Writing styles. 
• Types of writing (202-).